the orchid

A boy accused me once of “being one of THEM,” one of the pedestrian everybodies, those terrible people who I thought we were mocking and judging together. He used to tell me he was red, the only True color. And the Others, they were blue.

“How can I be?” I told him. “They don’t really accept me either.”

​If anything, I was like their pet. Something they kept around for amusement, for comfort. Something they talked to without every expecting or desiring a response.
​
I fill a particular void in people’s lives. I am a distinct flavor they only indulge in when they’re craving something salty and a little bad for them. I am the junk food of people, always there on a rainy day, excellent after a break up or family crisis, a generous caregiver during a hangover. I am nostalgia of the time before you counted calories, I am the guilty pleasure, the once-in-awhile luxury. Not because it’s too expensive or hard to find, but because you’d get sick if you had it everyday.
​
I am the snarky comment you wish you could’ve thought of but would’ve been too afraid to say out loud. I am the one who asks the questions, not the one who has the pleasure of answering them. I am the friend who shows up two hours before the party to help set it up, but leaves when all the guests arrives; or shows up six hours late when they have all gone, and stays to help you clean it up.

On occasion, you might find yourself bragging that you know me, or find yourself telling one of my stories to a group of friends and pretend that it’s your own.
I am the weird thing you bought at a flea market one time on a whim, imagining for a fleeting moment that you could be the type of person who wore hats like that or could find a use for an antique branding iron. But I only looked good in the store, and once you brought me home you realized I didn’t really fit in with the rest of your stuff. The eccentricities always end up gathering dust in a corner under the pile of books you’ve been meaning to read, or forgotten in a box with your ex-lover’s sweaters. I’m the ukulele you bought because it was going to be so easy to learn, and you already knew how to play a few songs on it… but tuning it was such a pain in the ass, and you got bored with the songs you knew anyway.

I’m a high maintenance plant, the kind of orchid you purchase to prove to yourself that you can handle the responsibility. You invest diligently for a month or two, proud of your accomplishment in keeping me alive. It’s not that hard! You tell the orchid. I can’t believe all those other people gave up on you! But not me. This is easy.

But then the edges of my leaves begin to curl, the petals recoil. Was it always this difficult? Just a light mist of nourishment, a minute or two out of your week, and that was enough. Now it needs more?

You watch the orchid whither away on your window sill, but you keep it there - a vestige of its failure, not yours. Your friends come over and laugh with you. “I had an orchid once,” they say. “But mine died too. It was too much work.”

Why couldn’t it have been like the cactus, or the succulent? They’ve been with you since college, and you never remember to water them. We should be rewarded for our resilience.

One day the orchid is gone. Did you throw it out? Did your mother? Your drunk roommate? Did she slink off on her own? You can’t remember, but every time you hear the name, your lip curls into a sneer. The only kind of person who could keep that thing alive must be crazy.
I am a time machine, a vestige of a different era; too weird for everyday use, but too cool to throw away.
I told him I was Purple.